Vietnamese shares struggled on Wednesday with six-month low liquidity and falling large-caps stocks in the banking group.
The VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) rose slightly by 0.01 per cent to close the morning trade at 1,277.07 points.
The market's breadth was negative with 155 stocks increasing while 218 stocks declined.
Over VND13 trillion was poured into the southern market, equivalent to a trading volume of more than 407 million shares. This is the lowest level in nearly six months since the beginning of February.
“Liquidity cooled down while most stocks started to move sideways. Although the prospect of corporate earning results is strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, investors do not show signs of panic selling,” said financial news site vietstock.vn.
“As in previous outbreaks, the bottom of the correction phase in the stock market may fall in the peak of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the second-quarter earnings results season is gradually coming to an end, large enterprises will start publishing data by the end of this week,” it said.
Le Quang Minh, director of investment analysis at Mirae Asset, attributed the recent low liquidity to investors’ fear of a resurgence of the disease.
“The pandemic has affected the expectations of many investors since the second quarter of this year, dampening their psychology and affecting their disbursement decisions. If in August Viet Nam can curb the rising infection cases, the cash flow will soon return,” he told financial new site cafef.vn.
Mirae Asset forecasted that many businesses in the industries of IT and logistics would continue to maintain good growth in the third quarter of 2021.
“Therefore, the slump in liquidity is only temporary and will soon recover in the near future,” the company said.
Towards the end of the session, the VN-Index's gain was significantly strengthened as banking stocks such as Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OCB), Techcombank (TCB), Military Bank (MBB), Vietinbank (CTG), Sacombank (STB) and HDBank (HDB) extended their rises.
The VN30-Index, which tracks the 30 biggest stocks on the southern bourse, witnessed a loss of 0.17 per cent to close Wednesday at 1,407.50 points. Of the VN30 basket, 13 stocks climbed while 16 stocks slid.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index also rose 0.08 per cent to 306.25 points.
Nearly 36 million shares were traded on the northern exchange, worth VND1 trillion. — VNS